World Vertical Week 2017 Big Data: See who stands on the top!

10 März 2017

SuuntoRun

World Vertical Week 2017 Big Data: See who stands on the top!

10 März 2017

The second annual World Vertical Week was held last week, between February 27 and March 5. The goal was to find out where in the world Movescount members ascend the most and who are the queens and kings of the hill.

The World Vertical Week is about collecting vertical meters for your country and your sport. All moves in all human-powered outdoor sports count. To keep the playing field level, we were only comparing averages. A cumulative number of ascent meters per country would not have made sense as the population and number of Movescount members varies.

Skiers are still quite clearly the queens and kings of the hill with 849 meters of ascent in average. The mountaineers climbed on the second spot with 636 meters and the trail runners rounded out the top three with their 400 ascent meters.

Actually the order of the activities remained almost identical compared to 2016: the only difference was that mountain bikers passed the snowshoers in the listings.

Average ascents in various activities

Ski touring 849m

Mountaineering 636m

Trail running 400m

Mountain biking 362m

Snow shoeing 316m

Trekking 293m

Cycling 236m

Cross country skiing 222m

Running 104m

SKI TOURING IS NUMBER ONE – BUT WHO SKIS THE MOST?

Now that we know that ski touring is the sport with the biggest average ascents, it is time to dig deeper. The snowy winter in the Pyrenees has boosted the skiing spirits of the Spanish and they were the only athletes to cross the thousand vertical meter mark – in any country and any activity. Felicitaciones, españoles!

Top 10 countries in ski touring

Spain 1034m

Switzerland 938m

Slovakia 936m

Germany 927m

Andorra 916m

Italy 909m

USA 883m

Austria 877m

Poland 874m

France 858m

A SLIGHT SURPRISE IN MOUNTAINEERING

Mountaineering was second in the activity listings. But the leading nation within that activity was a slight surprise: United Kingdom surely has a long mountaineering tradition, but only a few – at least here in the Suunto office – would have bet their money for the island nation. The UK was not among the top mountaineering nations last year, but still they took the first place with 836 meters in 2017.

Top 10 countries in mountaineering

United Kingdom 836m

Italy 772m

Switzerland 749m

Germany 713m

Japan 685m

France 683m

Austria 655m

Taiwan 620m

USA 600m

South Korea 575m

ASIAN COUNTRIES DOMINATED TRAIL RUNNING

It was clear already last year that China, Hong Kong and Japan are strong in the trail running segment. This year they occupied the top three with excellent performances and clear margins.

Maybe having the Vertical Week in winter limits the possibilities for trail running in mountainous areas in Europe and North-America but still the Asian performance was impressive. Great climbing, China, Hong Kong and Japan!

Top 10 countries in trail running

China 887m

Hong Kong 808m

Japan 711m

Italy 572m

Portugal 540m

Spain 524m

United Kingdom 509m

Slovenia 469m

Greece 468m

Austria 437m

CLOSE MARGINS IN COUNTRY COMPARISONS

We also analysed the data for all human powered outdoor sports and compared the average ascents between countries. The margins were tight, but still there was one above the rest: The Austrians ascended on average more than any other nation, 320 meters per every Movescount Move tracked during the Vertical Week.

Top 10 countries overall

Austria 320m

Italy 298m

Switzerland 287m

Spain 261m

Slovenia 261m

Portugal 258m

Hong Kong 247m

France 240m

Norway 235m

Slovakia 218m

TOP COUNTRIES IN OTHER ACTIVITIES

And to give you even more to speculate here are the top countries in the other activities mentioned above.